Unflinching Triumph, a recently released movie, explores the little-known subculture of Professional Staredown contests (aka Staring Contests). You can view the movie in its entirety online (free and legal!), or view the trailer at YouTube.

But I started wondering if perhaps the movie was based on a germ of truth. Is there some kind of subculture of staring enthusiasts? After all if cup stacking or chess boxing can be sports, why not staring? So I checked on Lexis Nexis to see if there was any mention of Staring as a professional sport in any paper for the past five years. But there doesn't seem to be. Wikipedia doesn't make note of any such thing either, though it does mention that some people like to challenge their pets to staring contests.

That website is pretty well done. The Rules PDF is particularly nice. Funny stuff.

Posted by Cranky Media Guy on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 03:25 AM

For who know the Terry Pratchett books, staring is one of the essentials witch skills. In "Lord and Ladies" there's also mention of a staring contest, and an actual stare contest with the sun....

Posted by fizz on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 05:00 AM

A 1990s British comedy sketch show called Big Train had a handful of animated sketches from the World Staring Championship, with commentary provided by Barry Davies, then one of TV's top football commentators. Might have been the inspiration for this.

Posted by Charlie in London on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 05:18 AM

Considering that none of the news events from any of the related sites go back any farther than the beginning of the year, this is definitely a fake sport. Considering that the myspace site for the supposed champion has been up a while and still has no friends listed, it doesn't seem to have worked out too well.

Being featured on this site my change all that, however.

Posted by catwhowalksbyhimself on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 05:58 AM

I remember the Big Train sketch. What was really silly was it was just a single,unmoving frame of animation(except when they needed some slight movement for the joke) and they were basically commentating on, well, nothing. Nothing was happening at all.
I think that was the parody on some other sports where nothing seems to be happening yet commentators dont stop talking.